


The Maker

by Melanthios



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ficlets, Gen, character sketch, drabble-and-a-half
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 17:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15029672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melanthios/pseuds/Melanthios
Summary: I looked up all the rest of the Elders and their character concepts were all lacklustre in my opinion, so I decided to make my own. Here's the first one.





	1. Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lycaenion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycaenion/gifts).



> Please read and review!

The Maker was not called that because he had made the universe, a world, or even a people. The Maker was called that because he had made _himself_ , and was constantly making, and remaking, changing, and changing again, always in a state of becoming, and like all creators, possessing a heart of overflowing generosity of spirit, of giving love, of wishing to share his art with the universe.

Those who could understand became the Maker’s friends. Those who didn’t would never be troubled again by his presence. No artist likes their work to be treated with revulsion.

The friends chose to worship at times, but the Maker made clear that while he would grant changes in shape to friends, or even strangers if they so wished, he had no other desire, nor power. But he was wise enough to know he could not stop them, and so he laid out rules, as all worshippers wish for rules from their gods, rules to make the chaos of life feel orderly: Do good; if you can do no good, do no harm. Convert no one. Do not preach. Create beauty. Share kindly. Tell me of beauty that you find.

This last one was how the Maker got new ideas, for he could not see something beautiful without feeling inspiration to decorate himself with it. His friends soon learned that the beauty that fascinated him most was the beauty of living things, of the ways beauty wrought itself on their bodies, of the ways pleasure wrought itself within their flesh and bone.

But, too, some friends saw fit to accompany their offerings with news of less beautiful things. Interesting news, things they felt important to the Maker’s safety. He grew to appreciate these things, for they somehow made the beauty sweeter, more precious.

Some friends started cults, or disobeyed the spirit of the rules. The Maker would go to see these friends, and speak to them. He would appear before the cult and speak to them. Sometimes it worked. Usually he made more friends.

The Maker was lonely, for all the friends he had, he had no lovers among them. You could not be lover to a god, not really. The _idea_ of a god, certainly; but only gods could truly allow other gods to be vulnerable enough, flawed enough, unloveable enough, to love them properly.

And then, one day, one of his friends became Lost. They were a devoted friend, lonely in the same way that all the very closest friends of the Maker were. It was the first time the Maker had lost a friend, and he mourned.

And then, some time later, the friend came back—with another god. Came back, stepped right into the Maker’s world, to his front door.

‘Oh, Maker,’ said the friend, reverent upon the sight of him; but they got no further before the Maker was embracing them in relief, touching all over them in affection.

‘You are safe, you are safe, you are alive! I am so happy! Ah! Ah, and who is this? A new friend! Hello, I am the Maker.’

‘This is the Grandmaster,’ said the friend. ‘He is a god, like you.’

And then the Maker had a lover.

At least, for a little while.


	2. Wonders

The flesh could be coaxed to do most things, especially if soothed with unconsciousness and coma. Over the centuries and millennia, the Maker perfected these tools the most, and the only limitation of his body was that he always kept it made of flesh, never cybernetic; and that, this being so, every change had to be undergone with careful surgical procedure. He had gotten used to the ritual, so much that it had _become_ a ritual. He imposed no limitations on himself, on his art, but for these, which facilitated the continuation of it. All artists must maintain their medium.

But as time went on, inexorable in its march, he refined and refined, and had built many wondrous assistants, with the help of his new once lover, now brother, his many assistants could reason with the complexity of chaos theory, and therefore be trusted while he was under the deep and comatose trance required for his surgical transformations.

The Grandmaster came to visit with some regularity, always full of wonder for what new shape the Maker had taken, but he never stayed long. It was not in his nature to stay long, but always to _return_ , like a summer beetle. He brought gifts at first, but then realized the greatest gift he could ever bring was himself, and brought that instead—with many accessories that very perfectly fit inside him, on him, around him, in some way, to augment their lovers’ games.

The Maker’s loneliness was eased somewhat, knowing of these many games, and the Grandmaster taught him what he could play alone, to ease the ache of being lonesome. It helped. The Maker grew, and incorporated even this beauty into his Becoming. The next the Grandmaster saw him, the basket of toys he had brought fell from his hands, and was forgotten.


	3. Gifts

The Maker’s home was a place of beauty, a moon of black glass and sand, full of dead volcanoes and where the only life was he. He had not taken any other home, wanting too much space to work, wanting too much silence to tolerate others he did not choose and could not control. His machines were the only moving beings here, but even they were not sapient, only thinking and reasoning, complex but not alive. The Maker deprived himself this way, of beauty, because he was, like all artists, vain as much as he was compassionate, and anxious as much as he was concerned that visitors would not recognize him if there were other living beings in his home to confuse them.

(This latter was true; many visitors, though there were not many, were relieved to find out that the Maker was the only living organic being on his moon. It saved them the trouble of trying to identify a being who was never the same shape twice.)

One day, a ship came. Ships were not allowed. The Maker generally ignored them. They always went to the planet, where the Maker had put decoys for them to wander in. He had left his machine assistants to make winding mazes and buildings based on pure geometry there, buildings that made no sense and had never housed anything but the builders, who needed them not. Usually it kept attention away from the moon, humble and small as it was. The Maker preferred crypsis to weaponry or armour.

This ship, however, landed on the moon. Immediately, the drones swarmed it began to scrub furiously, undeterred by fire, self-repairing as they were, it was no worse than the meteor showers. But, after one shot, they stopped firing upon the drones, having learnt they were not armed, and not doing harm.

‘I mean you no harm,’ said the being who stepped from the ship. He held out something in his hand, an offering. ‘I have brought you a gift.’

The Maker did not answer, but watched, curious. There was something familiar about this being, the stripe upon his lip and his chin…

The Maker went to meet him, many legs climbing over the rocks where the stranger had landed his dropship with ease, still a little stiff from the newest surgery—he did not prefer visitors if he had not invited them, for this reason. He still needed time to heal, to recover.

‘Is it you, En Dwi?’ he asked, eager at the idea, ‘Have you finally wrought yourself into a different shape?’ His voice was breathless with delight, circling to see from all angles. But the lack of recognition made clear… ‘Ah, well, you are a friend of his, then?’

‘I am his brother,’ the stranger said, and the Maker beamed, taking the gift and looking at it from all angles in his many hands, with his many eyes, before opening the box and taking out what was inside, completely missing the look of horror that crossed the giver’s face as the seal on the package was broken.

‘It is very beautiful,’ the Maker said, ‘I know just where I shall use it!’


	4. Octarine

The stone was black, but it was not at all black. Black was simply the only colour that came to mind, even as one became sure it was not at all this hue.

(In fact, it was a hue that had only been named once, in a backwater planet at the edge of a galaxy, by a man who had never seen the colour, himself, but had simply imagined it. This said a great deal about his species.)

The Maker picked it up, for it shone and glowed with beauty in a way the other millions of black stones upon the shore did not. He looked out at the sea of black sands, the stone fitting perfectly into his hand, cool and smooth and friendly and terribly, terribly afraid.

‘I shall protect you,’ the Maker said, though he wasn’t sure why. He looked down at the stone in his hand, smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I am here now. You are not alone.’


End file.
